Calligraphy quote art makes for a perfect DIY gift. It’s personal, artistic, and thoughtful, and it doesn’t have to take forever to make! Today, I’ll show you my shortcut method for making frame-worthy calligraphy pieces.

1. Choose a Premium Paper

If you plan on giving your calligraphy quote art as a gift, you’ll want to choose a hardy, high-quality paper. Make sure it’s acid-free! Otherwise, the years will take a toll on your work as the acid in the paper reacts with the ink.

I generally use 140 lb. watercolor paper or 80 lb. drawing paper for calligraphy quote art. If you have never written on watercolor paper before, use drawing paper! Drawing paper has less of a tooth, which translates to less frustration.

Once you have your paper, use scissors or a cutting board to cut the paper down to your desired size. I cut mine to 8″ x 10″, which I will mat to put in a 11″ x 14″ frame.

2. Choose the Quote and Format

Before you create your calligraphy quote art, write out the quote in your regular handwriting. Experiment with different ways to break it up, and choose the one that seems to flow the best. Once you’ve decided on that, you’ve got a format!

“Take your time leaving, but hurry back,” is something my grandfather always used to say. I’ve always loved the welcoming tone of that phrase!

As a rule of thumb, try to keep your quotes short. The longer the quote, obviously, the longer it will take to write out. More words also result in more potential for mistakes, and lengthy texts can be difficult to format.

3. Make a Draft

Next, cut a piece of white scrap paper to the same size that you want your finished piece to be. (In my case, that size is 8″ x 10″.) Use a pencil and a ruler to draw the appropriate quantity of calligraphy guidelines on your scrap paper. Don’t worry about the positioning of the guidelines on the page; we’ll center the calligraphy vertically in a later step. You can see below that I drew five sets of guidelines to accommodate my quote.

When you finish drawing your guidelines, make a vertical line that runs through the center of the page.

Now, if you want to, you can draw diagonal lines to regulate the slant of your letters. This step is completely optional, and one I only take if I’m using a formal calligraphy style like Janet or Flourish Formal.

Slant lines are super easy to make if you have a parallel glider! Try to make your slant lines around 52 degrees.

Next, use pencil calligraphy to write out your quote. Try to center your calligraphy the best you can; if it’s noticeably off-center, erase the calligraphy, then re-write it.

Pencil calligraphy is great for drafts because its stroke contrast gives you an accurate idea of word size.

For words that are only slightly off-center, you can make vertical guidelines for yourself so you’ll know to move the words over a bit in the final version.

To make vertical guidelines like these, measure your word. Then, center that measurement in respect to the center guideline.

If you want to, you can play around with adding some flourishes.

Feel free to experiment with flourishes!

Take advantage of the fact that you’re using a pencil! If you don’t like some of the flourishes, you can easily erase them.

Pencil drafts are easy to customize — don’t be afraid to use your eraser!

4. Trace Over the Draft

If you have a light box, get it out. Turn the light box on, then transpose your “nice paper” over the pencil draft. Move the nice paper up and down until you can see that the calligraphy is centered vertically.

A light box is such an amazing timesaver for projects like this! If you don’t have one, try reading this article for light box suggestions and DIY light box tips.

Carefully use your calligraphy pen to trace over the draft.

This method is almost foolproof. You can be assured that your spacing and letter formations will turn out great!

I like using this technique because it’s quick and easy, plus you can trace duplicates if you want to! For example, I can easily trace this phrase a couple more times and give the results to my two brothers as a holiday gift. The drawback is you can’t use the light box technique for dark paper. The light can’t shine through any paper that has a dark tone!

If you create calligraphy on dark paper, you’ll need to write guidelines and make a draft directly on the dark paper. The process takes considerably longer — but renders cool results!

5. Frame (Optional)

Framing your calligraphy quote art will elevate its presentation to another level! I strongly recommend framing your calligraphy, especially if you’re going to give it as a gift. You can learn how to frame your own artwork and calligraphy in this blog post.

The frame is from a thrift store and I DIY’ed the mat. The total cost for this piece was $2.25. If you’re interested in framing your artwork and/or calligraphy, How to Frame Artwork on the Cheap is a must-read.

I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial, and that it helps you to checkmark a few names on your gift list! If you have any questions — or suggestions — about the process, please feel free to contribute to the comments! Otherwise, thanks very much for reading TPK, and hang in there … the “holidaze” will be over before you know it. 🙂

107 Comments

Thank you for this! I’ve been wanting to make calligraphy quote art gifts for special people but it felt so daunting. Thank you for breaking the process down and making me feel that I can do it. I love your newsletters, BTW. It’s one of the few I actually read. Happy holidays!

so I don’t have a specific quote, but this blog post couldn’t have come at a better time. I was JUST asked by a friend to help frame a quote for a xmas present, so I guess that is the quote I want to write!

The quote may be too long for this, but I think my mom would love the line from ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas: “As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky…”

I’ve been meaning to make some calligraphy quote art for a while now. I really want to use the quote, “if you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” I think it would work perfectly with some added botanical illustrations!